Child Safety at TSS has many aspects

Child Safety at TSS has many aspects

Deputy Headmaster and Head of Senior School | Andrew Hawkins

Campus drop-off and pick-up

The TSS Senior Campus is quite unique having 310 boarders on-site 24/7 during the school term. In order to support our large boarding environment there are 79 of us that live on-site permanently with our families, as well as kitchen and support staff that access the campus daily.

If you add the regular human traffic that happens in every school campus with 960 students including Teachers, Corporate Staff, Grounds and Facilities staff, as well as Coaches for sporting activities, the campus is extremely busy. The reality is, on any school day, we are essentially a suburb. The boys and staff ask for the cooperation of those parents that are dropping their son’s off prior to the start of school or picking up at the conclusion of classes. We ask that you be considerate of our student’s safety and only use the Top Car Park off Ferry Road or the Centenary Centre/Bus Turnaround area for the drop-off or pick-up. We ask that you avoid using the ring road that circles the top part of the school for any form off drop-off unless absolutely necessary.

Student protection and child safety has so many dimensions at TSS and this is a priority for all of our staff and volunteers that work with our boys. Our goal as a collective staff across both campuses is to make TSS the safest it has ever been to work and to enrol as a student. It is our hope that all families support this vision and assist the TSS senior campus to keep traffic to a minimum.

Snap Chat; Snap Map feature

You may already be aware that there was recently an update to the Snapchat App over the June/July Holidays. The update of the Snapchat App essentially automatically turns ON or enables friends to see the user’s location – however, it seems that updating the App adds the feature, but does not allow others to see the user’s emoji on the map, until the user chooses to allow this. Users will be guided to make the choice, the first time they open the SNAP MAPS feature. Users should choose ghost mode. Further, they will NOT be guided to make a choice if they do not open the SNAP MAPS feature. The accuracy of the Snapchap map feature is very accurate and potential strangers can easily track a minor’s location with the feature turned on and the user posts a STORY.

Advice we have received about how to reduce the risk:

Choose GHOST MODE when asked on first view or SNAP MAPS, or

Apply GHOST MODE through the security settings

Turn the location off in the phone Privacy Settings for Snapchat

Change the VIEW MY STORY settings to MY FRIENDS or CUSTOM, to ensure that strangers can’t see the user’s stories on the map

Check the user’s “Friends” list and delete people they don’t know.

This and other important relevant information will be reinforced at the Cyber Safety session next Thursday, July 27 in the Annand Theatre at 6pm.